A Mandate From Heaven
by Mary Tzu
Summary: The recovered journal form a soldier named Hiro living in the year 290 ASC, telling a harrowing story of love and adventure. A vivid account of the future of the world of the Avatar from a grunt's-eye-view. When war once again threatens the world will Avatar Sun Yu, Korra's successor, be able to restore peace and balance? Join Hiro and his friends on his epic adventure to find out!
1. Chapter 1

I stood transfixed to the music that filled the crowded subway as we waited for our train. In the corner by the stairs was an old and disheveled looking man playing a violin (the 2nd movement of Cao Cao's 5th if my memory hasn't failed me). I remember my mother kneeling down beside me, putting her hand on my shoulder and looking me in the eyes

"It sounds beautiful, doesn't it?" she asked. I nodded. My mother smiled, "Food and drink nourishes your body, but music is what feeds and nourishes your soul."

My mother then held my hand as we boarded our train, but not before putting some money into the musician's violin case. Looking back, she was right. Music did nourish my soul; but I don't believe it was enough to save it

My name is Hiro. This is not a memoir, and this is not my earliest memory, but this is the earliest one that matters, so I have included it in the hopes that you might understand what made me what I am a little better. I am a mercenary by trade, but you already know me as a terrorist or a fugitive. That is why I have written this account, in the hopes that I may plead my case.

It was the Summer of 290 ASC. Everyone knows how it started; I won't bore you with details. I was in my apartment watching the television when it happened. I usually don't watch the news, I just keep the television on as white noise (why bother hearing about the latest daily Water Tribe on Water Tribe murder?), but the urgency of the anchor's voice caught my ear, and I couldn't believe what I was hearing. District eleven, a predominantly Water Tribe autonomous region, had declared independence from the from the Fire nation. As a colony of the Fire Nation, it would have been insignificant had it not been turned into a breadbasket almost overnight under the stewardship the region's Chancellor Du Lin. That was nothing, however, compared to secession. Such an action was unthinkable – impossible – but the Chancellor had done it. And now the entire world held its breath and turned its gaze to a tiny little peninsula jutting from the underbelly of the Earth Kingdom.

I got the phone call two weeks later. I can't recall the specifics (I was unaware at the time of how important it would become) but I do remember the gist of what happened

"Hello?"

"Is this Hiro?" asked a woman's voice. It sounded older.

"Who wants to know?"

"I'm offering you a job in Jia," she said, "I know it's getting harder and harder for someone with your skillset to find work these days."

Immediately I began running a backtrace. I talked with her for several minutes. Partially as standard formality, partially to stall for time. She talked with me long enough without really saying anything, and I could tell she was trying to stall me too. All I got out of her was that it was in Jia (that's what they were already calling this newfound state of theirs). I grew impatient. Time to cut to the chase

"That's enough! I'm gonna need details. You can't expect me to just take a job blind."

"We're looking to hire some extra muscle during our… transitioning stage. You'll be working as part of a special operations cell. You've done that before, haven't you?"

Not since I'd left the Earth Kingdom Army, "Cut the garbage. I'm not a charity. Give me a real reason I should work for some raggedy water bender gang?"

"five hundred Yuans per day, all expenses paid, one hundred thousand at completion of contract."

"When, where, and how?"

"Go to the aerodrome at noon tomorrow. You'll find a man there holding tickets for you. The decision is yours, "she hung up.

I checked the back-trace – no dice. I had no idea what sort of line she was using, but it was very secure.

I wanted to think a bit about the offer I was given and I had plenty of time to mull it over so I sat back down in front of the telescreen. Some late night debate show; political pundits having a heated discussion over the now revived issue of Water Tribe reservations:

"What I meant to say is that the very existence of Jia is a rallying point for the Water Tribe people. By flexing their newfound political muscles, the idea of having Water Tribe reservations in the Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation is a very real possibility. It would be good for everyone to bury the hatchet and make friends with the Water Tribe."

"What you _really_ mean to say is that you'd be happy to appease a rogue nation. There is no need to have reservations, nor should the nation of Jia exist."

Big empty words coming from a citizen of the Fire Nation. They would do nothing against Jia save blow hot air. I personally doubt the Fire Nation would even (officially) go to war again for the next thousand years lest someone accuse them of being tyrants.

"The Water Tribe finally has its own country to call home," another commentator spoke, "and I believe that this is a good thing. If Jia exists then we will not need the reservations. Were the airbenders only a little bit less well off than the Water Tribe when they were given the Air Nation?"

The man was immediately cut off by a hurricane of booing as the audience cried 'murderer' and 'supremacist.' But he was right. The Fire Nation genocide killed millions, but the reach of the firenation was only as far as its frontlines and the Air Benders were Nomads free as the wind. By the end of the war there were about a thousand Air Benders in Ba Sing Sei alone. Of course, by then the damage had already been done and no Air Bender dared practice their ability lest the Earth Kingdom collaborators were to turn them over to the fire nation for money or safety – something the Earth Kingdom was quick to forget.

"That's where you're wrong. The Air Nomads can go freely as they please. Many of the Water Benders in the Earth Kingdom cannot even afford to leave, How do you suppose they'll make it to Jia? Reservations will become necessary, like it or not

The Firebender spoke again, "What do you think Jia was up until the point when they succeeded? Autonomous Region Eleven _was_ a reservation for the Water Tribe, in everything but name. You give you give and give, and the Water Tribe just takes and takes and takes? Where does it end? Those reservations of yours would become nothing more than breeding grounds for crime And what happens when those reservations feel like succeeding and becoming independent rogue states? Reservations in the Earth Kingdom; reservations in the Fire Nation… Next you'll be telling me that you want reservations in the Air Empire. Tell me where it ends, Shin!"

The studio audience rose from their seats in applause, and I rose from mine to turn the television off in disgust. I had to pack my belongings, anyway. All I had was my old battle dress, my rifle, and my scattergun. Those would go in the luggage section. My pocket revolver, however, would stay on me at all times. You could sneak just about anything through security onto a zeppelin if you knew who to bribe. And so, against my better judgment, I made my preparations to depart the Earth Kingdom. The money was just too good.


	2. Chapter 2

I went to the aerodrome and found a Water Bender with my tickets, just like women said there'd be. I boarded the Zeppelin, and shortly after we were off with a bang. I remember the first time I flew on a zeppelin. It was an Earth Kingdom lifter carrying recruits like me to bootcamp. The first time I heard the bang, I thought we were going to explode. The drill instructor watching me from the front of passenger compartment tried to hold back a smirk as he watched our terrified faces.

… I guess there's a lot of people who haven't flown in a commercial zeppelin before. What makes a zeppelin float are the bladders filled with a defloginated mix of air (mostly helium and some nitrogen). On the ground, it's in equilibrium because it's been cooled down. When they want to take off, machinery fires bursts of manmade lightning into the gas, heating it and making us buoyant. Boom!

After the first couple flights you stop jumping at the sound: you realize on some subconscious level that it's not the source of a threat. In spite of how loud it is, you even eventually learn to sleep through it. That's something you should know about grunts like me. There's a motto in the EKA that soldiers have. _Never stand when you can sit. Never sit when you can lie down. Never stay awake when you can sleep._ That's a big one for grunts. Out in the field, sleeping becomes a man's favorite pastime. The goal is to spend as much time possible in an unconscious state, because when you were awake and not out on patrol, there is very little to do in terms of entertainment. I had a twenty-four hour flight ahead of me, but if I slept more than half of it, it would be as if the trip was only ten or eleven hours long, wouldn't it?

We arrived at around 1300 the next day. Yakima aerodrome, on south-western coast of Jia. As soon as the zeppelin's doors opened, I was hit by a blast of warm air. Another man was waiting for me; took my luggage to his open topped satomobile and told me to get in. He told me his orders were to take me to the a nearby military camp, but that was pretty much the only time he talked on the 4 hour drive there

If I hadn't just left the city, I would have never known I was anywhere near civilization. Everywhere I looked there was an endless expanse of dry brown dirt whirring past me. Above me was an empty and pale sky, the sun beating down remorselessly on everything in its sight. I did the only thing a good soldier does in this situation, I went to sleep.

I was awoken to the sound of a soldiers' cadence. That and the smell. Motor oil, spent gunpowder, and the smell of sweat encrusted clothes that haven't been washed in weeks. I looked around to see that we had just pulled into a moderately sized encampment, mostly likely a 'fob,' military slang for a forward operating base. As we pulled in and stopped the jeep, I finally rubbed my eyes awake and could see tents everywhere. I could see some platoons PTing around the edge of the fob, and other soldiers, clumsily shuffling between tents in the sweltering heat.

As I unpacked my equipment from the satomobile and the courier drove away, a man approached me from one of the tents with a stupid ear-to-ear grin on his face. He was a wiry tooth pick of a man. He was wearing nothing but his combat boots, short-shorts, and a boonie-cap. There was a contrast in the color of his skin – hideous tan lines from where he had worn body armor without a uniform on. His nose was covered in too much sunscreen and his eyes were hidden behind a pair of goofy aviators. His lanky stride was… comical at best but at the least seemed self-assured.

"Hello! Is your name Hiro?"

"Yes, it is"

"My name is Hei-Bai," he said, "But you can call me 'Sir'."

"I'm sorry?"

"I'll be your handler for the duration of your contract"

"Yes, sir"

I went to snap a salute but he stuck out his hand instead. It took me a second to understand his gesture, and awkwardly I lowered my salute and gave him a handshake.

"come to my tent," He said, "There's something you need to see."

Captain Hei-Bai's tent could only be described as a rat-hole. All around were unopened cardboard packages, re-rationed MREs and ruck sacks littering the floor. He had replaced is bed with a hammock, in order to fit more stuff on the floor that wouldn't fit under a bed. He had made enough space in one of the corners for a desk, which was littered with papers. He dug around in one of cluttered drawers until he pulled out an elephant-rat trap.

"Do you trust me?" he said.

There was an awkward pause – I wasn't sure where he was going with this.

After taking off his sunglasses, he set the trap on the desk, cocked the bar back and set it to spring, and said, "This is an elephant-rat trap." He pulled a pencil form one of the drawers. "It'll snap your finger like twigs. Watch!"

Hei-Bai poked the trap with the end of the stylus and it was ripped from his fingers, splintering in two. He reset the trap.

"Do you trust me?" He asked again

"I don't understand, sir."

He pick up the trap, delicately, setting it on top of his palm, "You're going to play your hand flat, palm down, and when I tell you, you're going to slam it on top of this trap." He held the trap in front of me and reluctantly my hand hovered over his.

"Do it," he said.

I started to pull my hand back

"If this trap goes off and breaks your trigger finger, I've just lost an invaluable asset. I trust myself enough to know that this will work; all I'm asking is for you to do the same."

My hand levitated over the trap for what felt like eternity, and then I slammed my had down on his. There was a *click* - my heart stopped, but Hei-Bai's hand held firm, pressing the trap into mine. It held. I eased off the initial force once I knew that I had made solid contact. Dozens of pounds of spring-loaded force, now held back with the weight of a feather.

"So little faith…" Hei-Bai chided, "I told you it would work."


	3. Chapter 3

I was brought up to speed on the situation in Jia as soon as I finished moving my gear into the barracks. Within two days of Jia's sucession form the Fire Nation, there had been a series of raids in Jia's north on farms and homesteads. The guerrillas would scurry down from the mountains and hills on Jia's northern border to attack the people farming out on the plains and foothills. By the time a response could be mobilized, they would disappear back into the hills. It was the perfect staging area for them, too. They could live off the land and therefore weren't weighted down with rations and equipment like the soldiers trying to pursue them. The hills were bad for large scale farming, so few waterbenders lived there; it was mostly a population of Earthbenders with little ties to Jia, eager to harbor or become members of the growing insurgency.

One of the most important principals of guerilla warfare is that no insurgency can survive without support – supplies, training, intelligence – from another friendly nation. The Fire Nation. There's two things that you can do in this situation. Mobilize the army and have them secure every town under martial law, sweeping house to house, acting as police when they've only been trained as soldiers to shoot whatever they consider a threat. Or, if the insurgency is still in its infancy, you can mobilize teams of special operators and light infantry, working in small groups moving light and fast, to smother your enemies before the violence spreads. The generals and political leaders of Jia chose the latter option.

To that end, Hei-Bai asked me how I'd feel working in a lance. Lances were small detachments – only a squad or two at most – of special operators whose commanding officers answered directly to either a general or even the nation's leader. I had never been part of a lance, but I had been in a similar unit, back when I was in the Earth Kingdom Army

There's a common misconception about snipers among the civilian populace. It's often thought that snipers are individual hiding out in apartment building or on the rooftops, but this isn't true – at least not of the professionals, anyway. Professional snipers work in teams, and it's a lot more than just the sniper-spotter pair. In the EKA, we worked in teams of six.

There's the commander, who also acts as the spotter and carries and accurized self-loading rifle for shorter ranged work.

Next comes the shooter. He's the commander's protégé, and is the actual sniper on most shooting missions. He's armed with a bolt-gun for longer range and greater precision.

Then there's the radio operator to coordinate with troops and artillery.

A demolitions expert to set defensive traps and mines, as well as forced entry into building.

Lastly, there's two grunts to provide security for the rest of the team. That was my job.

Being part of the lucky twenty percent of the population that was gifted with bending, I was a prime candidate for special operations. Being a firebender in the Earth Kingdom practically guaranteed it.

I still remember my very first combat deployment as part of a sniper team. I was only nineteen at the time. I had seen combat before – it was one of the pre-requisites to make it into special forces, after all – but it was really a fluke. I had been a firing range instructor back then. I requested to be moved up to a front line forward outpost during the Chosin insurrection to give the soldiers there some live-fire training with new equipment. I really just wanted to get my combat badge. Sure enough, some insurgents began taking potshots at the camp from almost half a kilometer away, I fired a few rounds in their general direction, and at the end of the day I went home with a medal.

This was different.

This was the real thing.

"It's alright if you're scared," Korah said to me. "You just don't want to show it."

I was young. I hadn't learned yet to bury everything inside like Captain Jian Li or Corporal Yui. I think everyone in the powered glider was scared, and they called me out for reminding them.

There was a region controlled by the Fire Nation not all that different from Jia, a tiny little province on the border of the sea. The territory was in anarchy, control was being vied for by several different warlords. Disease ran rampant. The people were mostly uneducated and illiterate. Healers Without Nations tried to send humanitarian aid, but many of the people were superstitious and believed that they could cure their venereal diseases if they had their way with the waterbending healers. After reports of gang rape reached the media, there was a huge outcry for the Avatar to do something about the situation.

Avatar Sun Yu called upon the United Republic to mobilize its forces, and as the army restored order across towns and villages, special forces teams like mine were sent into the jungles to scout ahead, plant traps, or assassinate warlords.

This was a week into the intervention and there was a lone sniper that had been taking shots at coalition officers. Soldiers started calling him the Black Death, and for every physical casualty he created, there'd be two or three psychological casualties. We needed him dead, and quick if we didn't want morale to suffer. We leaked intelligence about a covert operation to assassinate on of the local warlords. In reality, it was a ruse to lure the Black Death out of hiding so we could kill him. We wouldn't even have to look for him now; he'd come straight to us. I was risky thing we were doing, but then again, that was the whole point.

The light in the back of the cargo bay blinked red. A loud and terrible gust of wind flooded the our compartment.

"thirty seconds!" our pilot shouted over the wind.

I did a double check of my parachute, my dive mask, and regulator – all systems good. The light switched from red to green.

Two by two we jumped. Korah and Yui. Bumi and I next. Imediatley I was engulfed by darkness. There was only the moon to guid. Just barely enough moonlight for our night vision lenses to work. As I plummeted through nothingness, I looked down and saw a tiny blinking light, a strobe on the back of Korah's parachute pack. It was a singular star, a constellation to find my way home in the dark. I was still scared, but it calmed me to know that I was not alone, even in the darkness. And just as I depended on Korah to guide my descent, there was a strobe on my back guiding those above me (Bumi this time, our radio operator).

Bumi's words to me before takeoff that day crept into my mind, "Listen up, new guy. I'm gonna be right behind you in the lineup. I absolutely hate night jumps, even more than you do. I'm depending on you not to screw this up, but I want you to know that if you lose track of Korah, I'll be right behind you. If you get lost, I'll find you." It helped to put my mind at ease.

The strobe light on korah's back suddenly split into four and turned from white to yellow – the strobes on the corners of his parachute as he opened it. I pulled the rip cord and winced as my body decelerated from over 200 kilometers per hour to 20 in the span of around three seconds. The sound of rushing wind was now replaced by crashing waves. I still couldn't see the water below me. The strobes on Korah's chute turned red – he had cut himself free. This was important: eject too soon, and you could splat – even in water you can splat if you fall from high enough – but if you eject too late, you could become tangled in your parachute when it hits the water and drown. I could only trust that Korah had a good sense of timing. I cut myself free, my stomach rose into my chest, and the next two seconds felt like an eternity.

From toe to head, the sea reached up and engulfed me. I opened my eyes. More blackness. Darker this time, too. I could not see my hand in front of my facre; whether my eyes were open or closed made no difference.

I felt something brush up against my aide and I startled. I drew my dive knife and raised it to stab whatever threat was near me. Something grabbed my wrist, stopping me from thrusting. I squirmed and flailed my free limbs for some good time before my wits returned to me and I had the common sense to turn on my head lamp with my free hand. It was Yui gripping my wrist. She slowly shook her head side to side, her eyes burning with contempt at my lapse in intelligence. I still don't know how she found me and the others in the darkness; some sort of waterbending sixth sense. But it was her job after all. Not only did she find us, but she guided us ten meters deep through five kilometers of Unagi infested waters to our destination.

We emerged from the surf, rifles drawn and at the ready. Even in water up to our waists, we moved fast and quiet up the beach. We were ghosts. As we moved through the mago grove deeper into the jungle, we encountered our first enemy, a lone rebel sentry. We were only fifteen meters away, but he did not see us through the dark. We walked through ankle-deep water, but he did not hear us through the waves. Yui's turn again.

The sentry did not notice her till the last second. He wheeled around just as a bolus of water enveloped his head. He tried to escape, but his heet were rooted to the ground with ice. I'll never forget the man's face, wavy through the water engulfing it, his eyes wide in terror, drowned while standing in only ten centimeters of water. I'll never forget Yui's either. Her teeth gritted, her brows furled together. Yui's anger was cold. It was collected.

No. Anger isn't even a good word for it. What Yui felt was hate

There are a lot of different ways to deal with death and killing. I was inexperience and the time, and let things like the sentry's downing get to me before I learned how to deal with it. Jian Li turned to hardiness and resolve. Korah was the exact opposite. He turned to black humor. More than that he turned to his rifle's scope. It pulled him out of reality. Looking through his scope he never really had to look at death; it was like watching a film. The scope of Korah's rifle was his condom: it let him interact with the world without ever having to really feel a part of it or dirty himself with his own action.

Then there was Jet, our demoman. He just worked on his earthbending to distract himself. Bumi, the only nonbender, would drown his sorrows.

Yui learned to hate. They say it's hard to take another man's life, but that's not true. You'd be scared of what you were capable of if someone put a gun your hands and someone else were shooting at you. Killing in cold blood, however, is another matter entirely. It takes a lot of practice and a lot of will. Most of all it takes a way to cope. Killing in cold blood is much easier your victim is less than human, and that's why Yui learned to hate and despise her enemy. She had a huge reserve to rely on, too. Many member of the Water Tribe join the military to escape the factories or the communal farms. Yui joined to get off the streets, and whatever sort of life she led left her angry and bitter.

We abandoned our dive gear shortly after. Without his dive suit's hood, Korah's blue arrow tattoo glimmered quietly in the moonlight. I was glad to be able to ditch the live bomb of compressed air from my back. Glad to get rid of the weight, too; we had a long way to go. Sweat dripped into my eyes like little stinging drops of fire. The air hung heavy with moisture and the taste of salt dripped into my mouth. I tried to wipe the sweat from my eyes and brow, but only succeeded in rubbing it into my eyes. Our target was the apex of a hill over-looking a dirt road. To get to the hill involved a twenty one kilo hike uphill through the jungle; we made it in under three hours.

The observational point, or OP, that we chose was decided for several reason. Most importantly, because it was obvious. It was a very simple position giving Korah a good view of the road as it wound through the mountain, perfect for a sniper to assinate anyone traveling along it. But we weren't here for the warlord, we were hear for the Black Death. That was why the OP was so obvious – he knew we would set up shop here. There was only one place he would then be – on a taller hill to our south, overlooking our OP. He was waiting for us.

As soon as we reached the clearing at the top of the hill, Yui, Bumi, and I set up a defensive perimeter. Korah got into position and loaded his rifle.

"Anti-personnel, tracer, silicate core," Jian Li whispered to him

I could hear Korah open the bolt of his rifle, insert the round into the chamber, and then lock the breech closed. Korah got into position and then spun ninety degrees to his left. This was the moment of truth: the Black Death had the advantage, he could already see us. Korah had to better than him; being good doesn't cut it.

"Do you have eyes on target?" Korah asked.

"Five degrees to your left," Jian Li answered

"Negative. "

"look for tree-cancer"

"Got him… "

"range: eight hundred meters, elevation: seven degrees. Crosswind: four knots. Hold the air."

"holding"

I didn't notice how loud the breeze was until it was stopped. Suddenly the whole jungle seemed to go quiet

"Take the shot."

"Sir, I think he can see me, he's looking right at me"

"_Take the sh—"_

BANG!


	4. Chapter 4

I jolted awake in my bed, gasping for air and covered in sweat. I was disoriented, but at the least I could tell form the light coming through the tent that it was early in the morning

"It's the heat"

I looked to the cot beside min. kneeling at the foot of the bed was a large man, tribal tattoos running down the sides of his arms. I could tell by the darkness of his skin that he was a member of the Water Tribe.

"Everyone wakes up early form the heat around here," he continued, "It's only six hundred hours, but the sun's been up since O' five hundred"

"Wh—who are you?"

"I am First Sergeant Buno,'' he said, tightening the laces of his combat boots. "I am the senior NCO of Hei-Bai's lance"

"small world," I said. "I'm one his riflemen."

"I already know… Breakfast is at O'-seven hundred in his tent. You need to be there," and with that he left.

I crawled out of bed half an hour after our exchange. I fought to keep the sweat ouf of my eyes as I tied my boots. Not from the lack of sleep but from the heat alone I was already exhausted, and it was only morning. I opened the flap to our tent and stepped into the blinding angry sun. As I walked toward Hei-Bai's tent I turned my head around to face away from the light and immediately wished I hadn't. Sitting behind the barracks tent were several soldiers shooting up with amphetamines. Not a good sign for the state of the Jian Army. Not a good sign at all.

As I stepped through the portal into Hei-Bai's tent, I was greeted by what looked like six soldiers sitting at a table; most of them men, one of them a woman, all of them ragtag. I recognized Buno and Hei-Bai, but the rest of them were strangers.

One of them aksed, "Who's the pretty boy?"

"Play nice, Peng," said Hei-Bai. "This is Hiro, the final member of our team."

Hei-Bai reached into a satchel behind him, pulled out a package, and tossed at me. I caught it.

"What is this?" I asked

Hei-Bai was bemused, "It's an MRE"

"That's not what I meant"

"It's breakfast. Take a seat and we can get started on our meeting."

One by one I was introduced my comrades in arms. There was Peng, an Earth Bending private contractor. Chang was a nonbending former soldier of the Earth Kingdom who's family had settled down to farm in Jia; his job was to operate and maintain any crew served weapons we would find ourselves using. Lastly, there was Koko – a singleton mercenary like myself. She was an Air Bender, but she always hid the tattoo on her clean0shaven head with a patrol cap. Other than introducing ourselves to each other, the meeting was short lived. When it was over, everyone but myself were excused to go about their business.

"I want you to come with me," Hei-bai said after the meaning. "there's someone you need to meet."

I drove with Hei-Bai fo a couple of hours along the backroads. Slowly desert gave way to farmland as we traveled toward the capital city. I'd hate to bore the reader, but a lesson in history and agriculture is in order; I assure you, it is an important piece in the puzzle of this war. As you already know, the Earth Kingdom has been going through a record drought for the last five years. Crop production is at an all-time low. Where there was once fertile land, acre by acre it has dried up into desert. The Earth Kingdom is where most of the world gets most of its food, and there's over five billion mouths to feed.

While Cabbage Corps products have been cutting edge and go everywhere from home appliances to military hardware, they have never forgotten their humble agricultural roots. Agricultural government contracts actually make up at least 40% of their revenue, and takes up a least 20% of their R&D budget. The desertification of the Earth Kingdom has been partly stalled in thanks to fertilizers developed and sold by Cabbage Corps. This was not without side-effects, however. During the days that it ever does rain, run-off from the fertilizers would get carried downstream and into the local water supply. The phosphates in the fertilizer would feed the algae in the water, causing red-tides that would kill all the fish and poison anyone who drank the water.

Not so in Jia. Here, where once was dessert, was now farmland. And without the use of nitrogen-phosphate fertilizer, either. With the skill of the Water Benders alone, a forgotten and arid peninsula had been turned into one of the largest bread baskets on the continent.

After several hours, Hei-Bai and I drove past what looked like a massive military checkpoint. I was told that where were many like this, stretching in a line around the capital and the Jian heartland. A series of knolls and bunkers defended with machine gun nests, ant-tank guns, and anti-air emplacements. All of these were redundant and connected via underground tunnels. Five years of non-stop work it took to build them. These forts were known to the Jians as the Wolf's Teeth.

Emerging from the maw of the Jian wolf, we entered Capital City. It rose out of the flatlands like an oasis in the desert. As we drove down the asphalt roads past the small concrete buildings, everywhere there were there were signs of order. At the city entrance were a pair of tanks, and inside the city full armed fire-teams of soldiers were patrolling up and down the streets. Don't worry, people of Jia; everything was safe, everything was under control. If that was the intent, it only served to remind me that Jia was on the cusp of war.

We passed under a large arch and onto a boulevard. At the end of the street was a large stone building. The front was adorned with massive pillars and steps lead up to the front of the building. Honor guards in ceremonial uniform silently guarded the front doors. Large blue banners – symbolizing the water tribe – hung from roof. I didn't need Hei-Bai to tell me that this was the Capitol building.

I followed Hei-Bai up the steps and past the huge oak doors into the Capitol building. I was given a pat down and then Hei-Bai and I were escorted by armed guards through the rotunda and down a rather large corridor. The first thing you'll notice if you were talk down this corridor is a very large portrait immediately to your right. The portrait is a painting of a dignified and majestic, though aging, woman. The woman's eyes burned with purpose; her face radiated a stern air of authority. This was the only portrait hanging from the wall, though there was room for dozens more. A bronze plaque beneath the portrait read "First High Chancellor of Jia, Du Lin."

As we reached the end of the hallway, the ornate doors opened up into an office with a large desk. Sitting behind it was an old water tribe woman.

The same as the one in the portrait

"Good morning, Hei-bai," she said

The same as the one I talked with on the phone.

Ah, crap. This was gonna hurt.


	5. Chapter 5

"Good morning, Hei-bai," Du Lin said as Hei-Bai and I said as we entered her office.

Hei-Bai replied, "likewise, ma'am"

"Thank you. If you don't mind, I'd like to speak with Hiro alone."

"Yes, ma'am," Hei-Bai said as he turned and departed from the executive office.

Du Lin turned to me, "Good morning, Hiro."

"Good morning, Chancellor."

"Do you know why I asked to see you?"

"no, ma'am."

"For one, I'm honestly surprised you took the contract," she paused for a second "I didn't think you would take it, and I actually didn't want to extend the contract to you after your… _interview_, but Hei-Bai insisted. He hand-picked you, too. Did he tell you that?"

I understood that lances were supposed to be in direct contact with their military's commander in chief, but I had no idea that it was Hei-Bai that had chosen me. I tried to hide my astonishment. Spec-ops or not, could a mere Army captain have that much influence over the High Chancellor of Jia?

"No," I said, "I never asked."

"And how do you feel about him? Can work with a Water Tribe member as your commanding officer? Can you stomach the idea of fighting for a nation led by a member of the Water Tribe?"

"I don't care about ethnicities or leaders. I go where the money is."

"Well you certainly didn't care about things like that when you went on your last job. Getting paid to shoot starving water benders, hmm? I know how much you said you enjoyed it. Enough that you even kept memorabilia."

My black sailors' gloves – I was wearing them right now. My first job after quitting the military had been to act as private security on the deck of a Fire Nation freighter. For nine long months I lived in a world that was only 360 meters long and 65 meters wide. The crew and I (many of whom were also waterbenders) soon developed a sense of camaraderie. They gave me the sailor's gloves after the first month and I became quite comfortable with them. My job on the ship, however, was to protect the freighter against boarding from the rampant outbreak of Water Bender piracy. These guys were animals – they were desperate and vicious. Many of them amphetamine addicts, and if they weren't pirating to buy more drugs, they were pirating to buy food while high _on_ drugs. I've filled a water bender with enough bullets to kill an Elephant-Mandrill before he went down.

It was good pay, I needed some time away from the rest of the world, and if I had to kill people, it wasn't exactly a load on my conscience if I was killing the scum of the earth.

She continued, "Don't deny it, Hiro; Jian intelligence is _thorough_."

I smirked.

"What are you going to say?"

"Nothing, ma'am."

"Don't be so vain to assume I'm singling you out. I've already given the same treatment to every member of the Hei-Bai's lance. When you are in my office, you speak freely."

There was a deafening silence between us in few seconds before I spoke, "Perhaps Jian intelligence wasn't quite thorough enough."

Of course that's always how it is. Even though soldiers depended on their Intelligence agencies, intel spooks were _never_ to be trusted. First off, even if they didn't give incorrect intel, they often never told you the whole truth. Whenever one was around, you knew that things were either not going to go as planned, or you were about to used – they _always_ had an ulterior motive. It was bad enough that they were civilians, but how could we trust them when they refused to trust their own soldiers?

She asked, "What do you mean?"

"Did you or intel know about the drug addict problem in your military? Just this morning I saw amphetamine addicts shooting up behind the barracks. They weren't even trying to hide it! You're trying to secure order to your country with an Army filled with the same scum living in ghettos. It's completely unprofessional."

Her eyes suddenly grew cold with anger. I had only seen one other woman with that same kind of cold hate in their eyes before, back when I had served the Earth Kingdom

"You think intel wouldn't catch something like that? You think I didn't know about it? Of course we did. And what would you have me do, Hiro? I am trying to build a nation-state. Was I supposed to just start with the reforms before being able to carry them out? I need an _Army. _These people come from everywhere. Yes, Hiro, it is unprofessional, but I don't have another choice. A good portion of them probably wouldn't even pass selection if they didn't have a little extra kick. So my choice is either to have a military with two thousand drug addicts or have a military with two thousand twitchy withdrawal patients. Exactly what are my options, _Hiro_? You hypocrite! You can say anything you want about my people, but you will never be able to hide those scars."

I glanced down at my left arm – forgot I wasn't wearing long sleeves. Yes, recruits of the Earth Kingdom Army were rife with hazing and narcotics use. And yes, when I joined the Earth Kingdom Army I was… low. I gave in. I used. But I _quit!_ They had no excuse.

"…I've had enough of you for today," she said. "You're dismissed."

I gave a salute and walked out the door.

I spent the rest of the day reading carbon copies of After Action Assessments (AAAs) of various TICs (troops in contact) from engagements with the insurgents. Hei-Bai wanted us to assess the enemy. He wanted us to know them and be informed. He said there was a good chance of a rebel attack tomorrow and he wanted our lance to be on call.

I went to the head late that night brush my teeth. I was about halfway through and then,

"Good evening!"

I startled, fell to the floor in a whirling dervish of expletives. It was Buno. walked right up to sink next to mine to brush his teeth without making a sound.

"Good evening," I said.

He grinned at my sheepish response as he began brushing. In spite of his hulking size, every one of Buno's movements was graceful like a dancer's – even in brushing his teeth.

"Where have you been today?" I said

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

I was about to open my mouth to ask a question when he said, "Down in Qin, spear-fishing Unagi." He flashed a toothy, foamy toothpasted grin.

To this very day, I still don't know if he was joking.


	6. Chapter 6

The next morning I gathered all the supplies I had and needed for a ten day expedition in-country. Hei-Bai's lance, now going by the call-sign Dagger-One, was to head to the foot hills in the north-west of Jia and provide over watch for several local home-steads within line of sight. What this really meant is that if we'd be babysitting Hei-Bai as he talked to Dagger-Actual on the radio in the unlikely event that anything actually did happen.

Nevertheless, I made ready for our excursion. I packed light – not that I had much to pack anyway. None of us did. One of the few things that almost all experienced members of the military have in common is a strong sense of perfectionism and a type-A personality. Keep everything organized. Less is more. It was also one of the things that set Hei-Bai apart from the rest of us. I have never seen a more type-B personality in my life. He went into the field with us carrying a fully loaded rucksack with enough useless equipment for just about any scenario possible. I didn't think someone so wiry could carry so much weight, but somehow he managed it. It seems obvious in retrospect, but maybe we should have all had our eyes opened when we saw this. It was the first red flag about Hei-Bai. We also should have seen the others after it.

As for myself, I carried nothing but a week's worth of rations, ammo, my snub-nose, and two long-guns. The first was my rifle, and EK QBZ (Earth Kingdom light self-loading rifle). Produced in the hundreds of millions, the QBZ set the standard for modern rifles and cartridges, firing the 7.62X53mm cartridge. Ultimately, it was not the efforts of Amon's terrorists and political rallies that brought the end of 'bender supremacy,' but modern technology. The cannon had existed since at least 100 ASC, but only in the last hundred years or so did Future Industries take the cannon to its logical conclusion – a weapon small enough to be carried by a single person, for the sole purpose of killing a single purpose. The first rifle was bolt action. Self-loaders came less than ten years later. Now decades of training in bending was easily be bested by a week of fire-arm training. The firearm became the Great Equalizer.

The rifle was not responsible for the way modern war is fought, however. That honor was owed to the machine gun, invented less than five years after the first rifle. With a machine gun, a crew of three could mow down hundreds of attackers at a time. Armies could no longer fight in blocks or lines. Units became much more autonomous and fought in smaller groups. The squad was born. Every single development in warfare in the last one hundred years has been related to countering and better employing these fully automatic killing machines.

My second long-gun was a 12-gauge top-loading tube-fed shotgun. The range of the shot-gun was limited to less than ninety meters, but I preferred to think of it as more of a tool than a weapon. The pump action shotgun was unique in that it could fire literally anything you fit down the barrel or into a shotgun-shell: buckshot, slugs, bolas, flares, grappling hooks, teargas canisters, fire pills, anything.

And on top of that there was my Fire Bending. Even if it had gone out of fashion, bending still gave you an _edge_. That little edge could still mean the difference between life and death.

We rolled out of the FOB at 0830. We took a modified truck designed to withstand buried mines. The top half of the satomobile had been removed – the Jians found that in the case of an ambush the trucks armored canopy turned it into a cramped death trap. Odds were better to just bail and retreat on foot. Still, riding in one feels incredibly exposed. I rode to the rear of the vehicle, keeping my rifle level and scanning for threats. Next to me sat Peng, who spent most of the ride smoking and keeping to himself. He wore a large yellow-black checkered bandanna, wrapped around his neck like a scarf. It was combat memorabilia, just like my gloves; a reminder that he had fought sand-benders in the Si Wong desert.

Two miles from our OP we disembarked and hiked our way through the dense tall grass to the top of the hill; it was important that not even the farmers we were protecting knew of our location. The first thing we did when we got to set our equipment down and begin clearing a space to camp with our machetes. Hei-Bai and Chang worked together to set up a large thermal imager on top of a tripod. He got on the radio when we were done and said, "Sabre-Actual, this is Sabre-One. We are _grey on the rock._"

This was spec-ops jargon that is fairly irregular among even those who have served in the military. The 'grey' dealt with the level covertness of an operation. White-Ops were completely overt. Grey-Ops were ops that were not illegal or operation outside of one's jurisdiction, but a low profile was still required. Black-Ops were operations that were completely covert. There was also another color code that would be added in front of the white-grey-black color code if the situation was called. That was Red, like the color of blood – guess what happens on Red-Ops. Lastly, there was the phrase 'on the rock.' The 'rock' simply referred to the ground, meaning that a unit had successfully infiltrated and was in position for the operation to begin.

"What do you mean, grey?" said Koko, looking genuinely disappointed.

"Grey," said Hei-Bai, "like in between but neither black nor white. Like, grey."

Koko pouted, "Ah, man. I was hoping we'd get some action, sir. We're not gonna go on a whole deployment without getting' to dispatch some baddies, are we?"

"Not up to me. That's up to the baddies," Hei-Bai said. "You're not bored already, are you?"

"No, _sir!"_

"good." He turned to the rest of us, "If you want to keep yourself busy, you can go freely anywhere on the hill. Stay within range of radio contact at all times. There must be at least two people on the OP at any given time. Maintain noise discipline at all times, and maintain light discipline after sundown."

It wasn't just a nicety that he was extending to us, it made sense from a tactical standpoint, too. We weren't in enemy territory; the more we moved around the hill the less suspicious and more civilian we'd look. It'd also be a lot harder for the enemy to sneak up on us if we were constantly and randomly moving.

Nothing much happened that night. Hei-Bai maintained unwavering attention to the villages through the sights of his thermal imager. Koko zipped around the OP on her air-scooter, or used it to sled to the bottom of the hill. Chang field stripped and cleaned his rifle. Peng sat away from everyone else and smoked. Me, I watched the Jian sunset for the first time. It was strong and shimmering, a proud red sun surrounded by a heavenly gold halo as it crawled across the faded purple pastels of the Jian sky, setting behind the countryside's fertile green hills. I think maybe I understood why so many had come here, why so many had run away from their previous lives to start over.

The next three days were uneventful. Buno and I had one thing in common: we slept at all times possible. On the fourth day I woke up to find that Buno had completely disappeared without anyone seeing him leave. Three hours later he returns with four freshly killed possum-chickens.

"Hiro, Koko: get to work on a fire. Make sure there's no smoke. It needs to be out before sundown," Hei-Bai ordered.

While we started the fire Chang and Buno got busy with skinning the possum-chickens. We roasted them on a spit over the open flame. Not exactly gourmet, but if you've spent the last four days eating freeze-dried hermetically sealed 'food' that was packaged before you were born and isn't set to expire until sometime after you're probably dead, then chicken-possum is delicious.

Contact came at 0700 the next day.


	7. Chapter 7

The first things we heard were the distant sounds of gunshots. It wasn't an unfamiliar sound, and every one of us did a double take at the noise.

"Go time, people!" shouted Hei-Bai. "Everyone on me."

Hei-Bai jumped onto his thermal imager and began looking at the village below, then took a reading with his laser range-finder. Chang started looking through his set of binoculars

"They're… They're killing the farmers!" said Chang. "We need to do something! We need to get down there!"

"Hold your ground, Chang." Hei-Bai said. He turned to his radio. "Dagger-Actual this is Dagger-One. We have confirmed sighting of fifty plus hostile footmobiles in village to the South-East of our location. How copy?"

*Bzzzzt* "Solid copy, Dagger-One. Reinforcements are on their way – ETA five minutes. Wolf-bats are already in the air and are being redirected to your location. ETA one minute. You are to remain at OP and direct Wolf-Bat till reinforcements arrive. You will then direct the landing zones for reinforcements to provide stops and a sweep line. How copy?" *Bzzzzt*

"Solid copy, Dagger-Actual. Dagger-One out." He turned to us. "We're going to hold this hill and call down the pain on the insurgents."

I looked over my shoulder and saw it coming in low and fast. A small powered glider, armed with rockets and machine guns – the wolf-bat. From our OP I could see tactics the Jians used in action. Dagger-Actual had patched in Hei-Bai to speak directly with the wolf-bat's pilot. Hei-Bai guided it in over the hilltop straight to the heart of the insurgent's current position. *FWOOSH* Frantan rockets struck right in the center of them killing some, knocking the rest over and disorienting or injuring them. The wolf-bat fired another rocket, armed with a smoke warhead. Dense purple smoke marked the area. The wolf-bat came around for several more passes at the stunned enemies with its machine guns.

Two minutes passed. I looked up just in time to see a fleet of aircraft pass over head. These ones were called auto-gyros. They had a propeller in front, just like a regular powered glider. However, instead of two wings, they had three. These wings were on top of the fuselage instead of the side, arranged like spokes on a wheel. They were free to spin like a wheel as well. As the propeller pulled the auto-gyro forward, the wind passing through the wings caused them to spin, generating lift. They weren't very fast, but then again that was the point. They could go so slow without stalling that the squad they were carrying could jump out of them from low altitude and remain unharmed.

The doctrine followed by the Jians would make an airbender proud. The soldiers assigned to counter-insurgency were lean, light, fast, and highly mobile. The first auto-gyro to come in was a gunship. It carried a machine-cannon – a weapon similar to a machine gun but firing 20mm exploding shells. This weapon was operated by a door gunner and mounted on the left side, meaning that the pilot could only make left hand turns it engaged the enemy. The gunship saw the smoke, pulled up to an altitude of three hundred meters, and began orbiting the battlefield. The gunner fired his cannon at fleeing troops in bursts of three.

*DAKADAKADAKA*

*BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!*

*DAKADAKADAKA*

*BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!*

After action assessments were studied meticulously and they showed a consistent behavior among the insurgents. Once reinforcements showed up, they would 'bombshell,' scattering in all directions and then escape to regroup later. The Wolf-bat's job was to stun them long enough for the reinforcements to get into position and use the smoke to mark the center of their bombshell. The pilot of the K-car used this to figure out the best center of orbit, but the pilot had to be very skilled to succeed: AAAs also found out that the insurgents moved at an average of 500 meters per minute. The pilot had to constantly widen the center of his holding pattern.

Next came the G-cars. These were the troop transports. They came in low and orbited the perimeter of the town at an altitude of only ten meters. One by one, Hei-Bai radioed the first four and told them the best places to set down their troops. These troops were to form stop lines. A panicked fleeing enemy would, in most cases, try to follow the natural terrain such as ditches, riverbeds, or the valleys between the foothills. The next two G-cars carried the troops that would form the sweep line. This line would start at end of the village and slowly work its way across from one of the other, killing or capturing all insurgents that were trying to hide or were caught inside the village by the stop lines.

This would eventually prove to be somewhat cumbersome. The orbits the G-cars followed, while it gave them a good view of the area before their troops disembarked, were time consuming. This time, for example, when Hei-Bai called in the position of the sweep-line at a location near the base of our OP, the G-cars were on the other side of the village. Nothing was perfect, after all.

Nothing was ever perfect. And nothing _ever_ went according to plan, either. Five minutes after the sweep line set down, we got the call

*Bzzzt* "Dagger-One, this is Dagger-Actual. The sweep line has taken a casualty and is requesting aide to fill the line. Move rapidly to grid-square provided and continue the assault according to our time-table. K-car and wolf-bat will take over as combat controllers and forward observer. How copy."

"Solid copy, Dagger-Actual. Alright boys and girls, it's show time!"

Koko charged her rifle, "Load and lock baby! Woo hoo!"

The five of us leapt to our feet and began vaulting down the hill, heed to the sound of gunfire coming from the village below us. Wait, did I say five? There should be si—

"Out of the way, pretty boy!"

I dodged to the side just in time to avoid Peng as he raced down the hill at break-neck speeds using his earthbending like a mountain board beneath his feet.

I looked at Hei-Bai. Hei-Bai looked at me.

He shouted, "Koko."

"On it, sir," she responded. She summoned an air-scooter and flew down the hill to catch up to Peng. I guess two is one and one is none, after all.

Fifteen second later, the rest of Dagger-One reached the skirmish line. Koko and Peng were taking a knee and securing the area.

Hei-Bai spoke, "Form a line. Three meter spread. Guns up. Keep visual contact of the people on your left and right at all times. Be ready for anything."

The pace was slow. One step at a time we waded through chest high grass. The insurgents could be anywhere at any time. We could hear the sound of sound of gunfire all around us, but these were just ambient noises like the sound of cicadas in the summer. Then I heard a snap and everyone instinctively dropped to their knee. The bang of gunfire isn't what you need to watch out for; the snap, however, is the sound of a bullet flying past your head.

We continued moving forward through the grass in a duck walk. Every so often, one of us would stand up and take pot shots at figures running through the grass. Then things go frantic. Point blank range, two insurgents lying in wait leapt at us from the grass. The first was cut down in a hail of bullets. The second lunged straight for me with a knife. I threw my rifle behind me to keep him from grabbing it and put my hands up in front of me to counter. He came straight for my face with the knife. I leaned my head to the right. He slashed again. Leaned to the left. He stepped back. I shot a blast of fire at him. The earthbender blocked it with a wall of dirt and then lunged straight through it.

This time I parried his knife attack. A large windmill motion with my left hand pushed the knife away from my body. I followed through with the sweep, wrapping my arm around his, securing his between my armpit and elbow. I twisted my torso upward and there was a sickening crack as his elbow hyperextended. His head shot back in pain as he gasped, and I gave a chop with my right hand to his exposed neck. I shoved him away from me and got back into a defensive fighting stance. Immediately the man was tackled by Buno, who put his kukri straight through the man's back.

"That was a close one," I said.

"Alright everybody," said Hei-Bai, "let's get back on the line."

*BZZZZT* "This is Stopline Three to Dagger-One. We just routed several insurgents. They look like they're headed you're way" *BZZZZT*

"Yeah," said Hei-Bai, "We're already well acquainted"

I turned around to grab my rifle and… it was gone.

Peng said, "Aren't you forgetting something?"

I looked ups to see him holding my QBZ.

I walked over to grab it, "Thank you!"

I held out my hand to accept it. He held the rifle out with one hand as if to hand it to me then dropped it at my feet and started to walk away.

"Peng! Hiro!" shouted Hei-Bai. "Do we have to start doing trust falls? Both of you get back on the line, now!"

The rest of the sweep remained unremarkable, though Buno made sure to put himself between the two of us from thereon out.


	8. Chapter 8

After the sweep was over, we packed up and headed back to the FOB. Had ourselves real food and got the next day off. Then we got our stuff back together and did the same thing the next week. And the week after. This continued for the next month and a half. These operations even led to the capture of several insurgents who have since defected and are now a part of Dagger teams (rumor has it that Hei-Bai himself was in charge selection). Tactics did evolve slightly as time went on. AAAs showed that the orbits of the G-cars for the sweep line were indeed time consuming. The stop lines continued to be set down by auto-gyros. The sweep line, however, was set down in a single pass by a four-prop troop transport. This was a difficult and dangerous operation. In order to maintain a tight spread, the pilot had to come in at only one hundred meters – too low to activate an emergency parachute if the first one failed. By the time the last paratrooper had jumped, the first one's feet had already touched the ground. This kind of drop required a very skilled pilot, and a very skilled forward observer to find the right place to being the sweep line and guide the pilot onto his drop zone. For most paratroopers, a combat drop was a once in lifetime experience. For the paratroopers of Jia, it was Thursday. One unit had completed seventeen drops in a single month alone

Today, Dagger-One was given a special mission. Rather than our typical job of acting as a combat controller on an OP, we were to take part in the sweep line. There was a twist this time. There would be a deliberated hole in the stop lines at the end of the sweep. Our sweep would chase the insurgents through this hole and out of the village. We would then hunt them down on foot all across the countryside till they either got to their regroup point, or we had overtaken them. We waited with our stuff packed, sleeping in our combat gear, for three whole days before we got the call.

As soon as it came, we rushed to the tarmac. We stood outside the hangar, waiting for the plane to get pulled out onto the runway. The pilot gave us five minutes. That's when I noticed there was something in the bushes next to the hangar. I crouched down to see… it was a small black cat. It mewed at me, reached into my ruck and grabbed a piece chow, and presented it to the cat. It was cautious for a second, and then began eating right out of my hand.

"What are you doing, Hiro?" Buno said. "Black cats are bad luck."

"Yeah, but it's good karma."

And in my opinion, it was good luck, too. Back when I was seventeen I lived in an apartment block in Ba Sing Sei. While traditionally, compulsory service began at age sixteen, the Earth Kingdom government offered a program to stimulate the economy whereby citizens who had a steady job could hold off on service till they were twenty. While I lived in the apartment, there was this random stray cat that lived in the area.

He was a curious stray, like he grew up not knowing how to be a cat. And growing up, whatever that is supposed to mean for him, was difficult. He was missing his left eye – it had been completely covered over in fur. Veterinarians said that it must have been infected so badly that it had burst open from the pressure. One of his ears was permanently fused backwards giving him an odd, almost quizzical, expression. Vets said that one was from a bad case of frostbite. He was emaciated, and you could see his ribs on the parts of his stomach where fur had fallen off in clumps. And on top of that there were scars from previous fights, probably over food. The end of his tail was missing too. He had given up fighting for food and had instead started eating out of dumpsters. A lot of the tenets and neighbors didn't kindly to this, and they would spray him with their backyard hose-pipes. Of course he didn't know how to be a cat, and just run away hissing from water. Instead he just lowered his head and took it until that person had gotten bored and gave up rinsing him.

I was walking home from work in the factory one day, surgical mask covering my mouth and nose to keep out the smog (_ten more years_ they kept saying. _Just ten more years and we'll have truly unlocked the power of the atom, and then we'll all have energy so clean and cheap and abundant that we won't even have to meter houses anymore. Just give it ten more years_) I stopped for a second to check my watch and felt something rubbing against my leg. It was that random cat. He looked up at, not making a sound, and locked eyes with mine. I pouted. He won this one, but nothing more. I reached into my pocket and gave him a piece of a dried meat. I then walked up the stoop do the front door of the complex. I looked behind me to see him sitting there, at the base of the steps, patiently waiting. He meowed. _Aw, fine._ _You win again._ I took him in that day and gave him a name. Rando! Rando, the random cat!

I took him to the vet the next day; had him vaccinated and treated for a bad case of worms. Even got him a collar. From then on, I made sure that Rando was healthy and well taken care of. Soon, he regained his strength and nearly doubled his weight. I wanted to make sure that the rest of his life somehow made up for everything that had happened before. Still, he never forgot the days he lived on the street. He never turned down a meal. One time he even dragged off and entire cooked chicken-possum before I had managed to take a bite.

In a way, he changed my life, too, even if it wasn't as much as I hoped I had changed his. I was planning on joining the military back then, just to get it out of the way. Rando gave me an excuse to stay a civilian, even if only for a couple more years. I imagined the two of us going on adventures, just like all the heroes from stories. Aang had his Momo. Korra had her Pabu. I imagined the two of us, traveling the world, befriending the Avatar. Going on an epic quest, with Rando as our mascot, that would restore balance to the world, correct injustices; the forces of good would defeat evil. Alluring as it was, it was really just an adolescent fantasy. I realize now, that nothing's turned out the way I planned.


	9. Chapter 9

Five days. Five days I've spent strapped to a hospital bed in Capital city. Maybe I did jinx the operation after all.

"How are my soldiers favorite soldiers doing today?" there was a hearty laugh that followed that question. I think he was laughing at our misfortune.

"I'm itching, Buno," I said, "I'm itching really bad."

"That's good! Ha! Ha!" he said. "It means you aren't dead, my friend."

"B-Buno?" It was Hei-Bai. He was strapped down to the hospital bed next to mine.

"Yes, Boss?"

"Buno! You lucky polar bear-dog, you!"

The two of them started giggling like school-girls.

"Can you do me a favor, Buno?"

"Of course, boss."

"Can you… scratch my belly?"

"aye, boss."

I heard the sound of someone smacking away Buno's hand. _That_ had to be 'doc.'

"For Yue's sake, Buno," the old doctor said, "I've spent the last five days giving spongebaths to grown men, and I aint gonna give them a single spongebath more than I have to! My patients are strapped down for a reason, Buno."

Koko's voice now, "Must be horrible to be in that bed right now. All that itching, and itching, itching _all over." _She was grinning, too.

"Shut! Up!" Peng shouted, "please, shut up."

"You two, got really lucky, you know that?" said Hei-Bai

"You _all_ got lucky," said Buno, "We should be dead."

"Takes more than that to kill a Jian; Jians never die"

Peng said, "Our luck could be worse – we could've been up against the Oni of Si Wong." Everyone laughed.

"Yeah," laughed Chang from two beds over, "Maybe even the Avatar himself's one of the insurgents"

Good joke. Everyone laughed. If either the Avatar or the Oni of Si Wong were hiding out in the bushes, the Jians must have _really _made some enemies.

"Well," Koko said, "Buno and I have still got to fill out our after action assessments, and the commissars won't stop breathing down our necks about it. Get well soon, boys"

Without warning she jumped onto Buno's back and shouted, ''Yip! Yip!" He rolled his eyes and muttered something under his breath, but submitted to Koko's piggyback ride.

Oh yeah, I'm guessing you have no idea what we're doing in a hospital, strapped down the beds like an insane asylum patient, itching like mad. I guess I owe you all and explanation:

Seven days ago was when we got the call – when I fed that stray cat. Dagger-One boarded the glider along with Dagger-Two and Dagger-Five. The jump proceeded without incident. I was the first out the door. Hit the ground hard and rolled; I looked up after I landed to see Koko gracefully gliding down, using her airbending to fill her chute and lighten the impact. Once the rest of the team landed, we all formed up in a line and advanced through the fields.

Once we swept through the field and got to the other end, it was Buno's time to shine. Five insurgents escaped the trap, and Buno would track them for us to the ends of the Earth. Buno was one of the last of what the Jian waterbenders called the "old breed.'' He never grew up in the ghettos or the cities. Buno grew up in Jia, but constantly moved around as a child. Instead of living on the farm, his parents taught him how to hunt the old way, with bow and arrow. His family raised him in all the traditional ways and customs of the old water tribe from before the industrial revolution. He had even completed the ritual Water Tribe ice-field navigation in an old fashioned Water Tribe sail boat.

"You some kind of noble savage, then?" I had asked him once.

"Water Tribe's not savage," he said to me. "Not noble, either. We're all just folk, same as everybody else."

"But you _have_ made the pilgrimage to the legendary northern Water Tribe, right?"

"I have."

"And the city ruins? What was it like? What did you see?"

"The city? …I don't know."

"What do you mean?"

"There's not enough ice anymore," He said. "It's all gone, Hiro; there is no city. It's all melted."

We tracked the insurgents across the countryside for three days, stopping to rest only after they had done the same. We even let them get the head start, just to make sure they didn't feel too threatened. Early morning of day four we ran into our first snag. The sound of a rifle bullet crackled in our ears, going high and wide off target. We all wheeled around.

"Hold your fire! Hold fire!" shouted Hei-Bai. "put your guns on the ground and hold up your hands."

A second later I saw why. A small boy ran up to us, holding a gun. He was wearing short-shorts, a tee-top, and a comically over-sized ammo vest. The rifle looked like a joke in his hands, too. I'm surprised it didn't knock him over when he fired at us.

"Dad! Dad!"

"I'm coming, son! Keep the gun on him!"

The father told his son to go back in the house and Hei-Bai had the unfortunate responsibility of convincing him that our motley crew were members of the military and not the insurgent group that we were after. Radio calls were made. K-cars were about to be scrambled in response to 'terrorist activity,' but were thankfully aborted at the last minute. Dagger-Seven who were overlooking the farmer's village and saw everything happen, had to break their hiding on the hilltop to come down to talk with him. Even then, things weren't settled until Du-Lin had been called on the radio and berated every single party involved. Just another day on the job.

As a soldier, you're used to getting shot at or threatened with violence, but when it involves children, it's something that's much harder to shake off. Usually they're slaves, child soldiers. This was different. These were the good guys. This was a father and son desperate to hold on to their farm. It wasn't simply a patch of dirt growing lettuce, it was about rights. It was about dignity. Something the Water Tribe hasn't received in a good fifty years.

All in all, getting stopped by those farmers had probably helped us, more than anything. It lead the people we were chasing to believe that we were no longer on their tail. They couldn't have been more wrong. Buno was one of the old breed, who could track a quarry for over a hundred miles from over twenty miles away. Half the time, Buno didn't need weapons. He would simply follow his prey for miles upon miles – never sprinting, never walking – until it had collapsed and died from exhaustion. This time, however we were hunting humans.

Thirty miles we followed him before Buno told us to stop. This far north, inside one of the valleys, the weather was much cooler, and the flora formed a veritable jungle. There was a clearing where the vegetation gave way from waist high plants to shrubs and ground cover. There were several trees about four hundred meters from our location. That was where are prey had stopped. Hei-Bai passed the binoculars to me.

"You see what I see, Hiro?"

"five insurgents we were tracking, twenty more at the rally point," I said.

"Look closer, tell me what else you see about the insurgents?"

I zoomed in and refocused with the binoculars. Some of the men, about seven or so stood out from the rest. Better posture. In better shape. All around more composed. "Looks like we've got some of the insurgents' handlers. What should we do, sir?"

"For now, nothing. We observe. Any chance they know we're on their tail?"

"Not likely, boss," said Buno. "We're downwind of them in this valley. I don't need to see them, I can smell them from here."

"Any chance we can get a better angle on them?" asked Koko

"Wouldn't risk it. We can see them fine, but maybe you haven't seen the terrain. The field in front of us – that's all poison ivy. And those guys are knee deep in it. They're either crazier than you, or they're just stupid."

Poison Ivy was no joke. Not only was it miserable, but it is a serious threat to combat effectiveness. The amount of wash-down and cleanliness procedures that they would have had to follow could be nothing less than religious in devotion. If they wanted to keep prying eyes away from their rally points and weapons caches, there couldn't be a more ideal place.

"Sir," Peng said while looking down the scope of his rifle, "you should see this; it looks like they're doing something."

Hei-Bai pulled out another pair of binoculars, and I held onto the pair in my hands.

The suspected handlers began what looked like shouting at the insurgents we had been following. There was a sudden movement among them. We saw the flash first, and the reports came a few seconds later.

"Have we been compromise?" said Chang, "Have we been compromised!'

Koko said, "What th—"

"They just killed all the innies we've been trackin'," said Chang, "They're all dead."

Hei-Bai didn't say a single thing. He kept focusing on them through his binoculars.

"Have we been compromised?" asked Peng.

Buno, "They know we were following them. Insurgents must have told them so. They don't know we're still tracking them. No way"

Koko said, "Hey do you do smell that?"

"No," I said.

"Smells… like smoke"

"I smell it too," Buno Said. "It's—"

I could see it now; a fire had been started where the insurgents were.

Hei-Bai barked, "Everyone. Gasmasks. Now."

"What do you mean? I don't have a gasmask," Peng protested.

"Masks for everyone are in my ruck. Get them on and call in casevac, or we're dead right now. Do you understand!"

"What's going on?" Asked Koko, "I don't underst-"

If any of us hadn't figured it out before, we all suddenly did in that instant.

The field before us was poison Ivy.

We were all down wind.

I think that was the last time any of us made fun of Hei-Bai for the amount of spare equipment he carried with him in his rucksack. As soon as I had put my gas mask on, the wind picked up. I was almost immediately enveloped in thick grey smoke. A stumbled around blindly for what felt like hours before Koko found me, collecting myself and the others in poison-free bubble of breathable air. It took casevac half an hour to reach us. Most of us had only been exposed to the smoke for no more than five minutes and that was enough to hospitalize us for weeks – if it wasn't for Hei-Bai's and Koko's quick thinking, we'd all be dead.

Some of us, of course, were luckier than others. Koko was able to keep almost all of the smoke off of her body from the start. Buno was naturally immune to ivy. There was one good thing to come of this, I guess. It gave me a chance to interrogate Hei-Bai.

"When I talked to Du-Lin she told me something very interesting about you, Hei-Bai."

"Oh, really?" He said, turning his head so that he could see me from his hospital bed. "What?"

"She said you hand-picked me. Said she didn't even want to pick me, but you persuaded her to. You're a captain. I dug up what I could about you on my off time, records say you served in the EKA, but don't provide rank. I'm guessing by how old you look that there's no way you could have even made it past Major, so how did you cozy up to the High Chancellor so well, huh?"

"Oh, Hiro, you know what the ladies like?" he asked, flashing one of his big dumb stupid grins. "Can't resist these pearly whites." He raised his eyebrows twice at me, in an unironic attempt at being seductive. "Can't resist these pearly whites."

"Then why did you recommend me."

"Because I know you. We've met before, Hiro. Not in person, mind you, but I have met you. I know all about what you've done, before you left the service and after it. I know the things they put in black ink, too; I know how you got both of your silver stars. You've got quite a secret resume, and quite a skill set, Hiro."

No! no! no! no! no! no! no!, "That's top secret! How in the name of Yue did get your hands on that?"

"Oh, Nuh-no. can't tell you how, hiro; only why. I'm not asking you to like me. I'm going to keep you in the dark. That you can count on. But I'm still going to ask you to trust me, Hiro. If I tell you to jump, will you take a leap of faith? The situation is a lot more… complicated than it would seem. And I need you on my side, to help me do the right thing. Do the right thing, Hiro."


	10. Chapter 10

There were two instances in my career that awarded me Silver Star. The first was my first real deployment, and the second was awarded for my last. The second one I'm not so sure about telling you. The first on the other hand, I've already started. Maybe I should finish?

"Anti-personnel, tracer, silicate core," Jian Li whispered Korah

"Do you have eyes on target?" Korah asked.

"Five degrees to your left," Jian Li answered

"Negative. "

"look for tree-cancer"

Tree cancer was a reference to a mistake common among inexperienced or poorly trained snipers. They would try to hide behind trees, with their heads and rifle popping up over the roots of the tree. While their bodies remained hidden, their heads would appear to be a knotted, bulbous, cancerous growth on the tree's trunk. Tree cancer.

"Got him… "

"range: eight hundred meters, elevation: seven degrees. Crosswind: four knots. Hold the air."

"holding"

Korah's airbending didn't just make him an excellent parachutist; it also made him an excellent sniper. He could read the air-currents and put a bullet on coin from five hundred meters away in a typhoon. But sometimes an airbending sniper like himself liked to practice more direct, less passive techniques. His bending allowed him to not only hold back the wind but create a vacuum between him and his target along the flight path of the bullet. I didn't notice how loud the breeze was until he had stopped it. Suddenly the whole jungle seemed to go quiet

"Take the shot."

"Sir, I think he can see me, he's looking right at me"

"_Take the sh—"_

BANG!

It was a million-in-one hit. Korah received the White Death's bullet the _exact_ moment he squeezed the trigger. The round that hit him passed straight through his scope, knocking his barrel of target. I watched the trace arch its way across the sky, off target by about twenty degrees. Jian Li didn't flinch, he just kept starring down his binoculars. He raised his wrist. Most bullets are made of lead with a copper jacket and go far too fast to be seen. This one had a tracer, a little tiny flare that glowed bright allowing it to clearly seen by anyone behind it or to the side of it. It also had a chip of silicate in it instead of just lead – silicate being the compound that makes up the majority of a rock's composition, of course. With a flick of his fingers he used his Earthbending to curve the path of bullet into the Black Death's head. Pop! No time to confirm the kill, this was good enough for our intents and purposes. We'd need to get out of here in a hurry. In a bout ten minutes, we would be—Korrah!

"I-I'm OK," he said. "I'm alright."

I looked at him, and then his gun. The scope had been completely destroyed. The Black Death's bullet had pierced cleanly through all of its optics, with the tip of the bullet just protruding from the end of it, millimeters from Korah's eye.

"R-really, I'm OK."

We packed up our stuff and raced down the hill to the road. Jet made sure to plant several mines and booby traps for anybody passing through the area. Korah had since slung his rifle over his back and switched to a knife and handgun. He was sweating a lot, even for the heat.

"Are you OK, Korah?"

"I'm," he said to me. "Really, I am."

We ran through the jungle as fast as we possibly could. We knew for a fact that a manhunt was being organized and they would catch us if we didn't move. We hurried as fast as we could, but Korrah kept falling out, kept having to sprint to catch back up to our position. On our through the jungle we came upon a clearing, in the center was a village full of locals. We'd all seen it before. The kind of thing they don't show in the press. Children running around naked because they couldn't afford clothing. Their ribs showing and bellies distended because foreign aid had been stolen by the local warlords. Flies covered them. They did have cattle to tend to, but they were too valuable to kill for food. Rumor has it that when things go really bad they would go so far as to lick up their livestock's menstruation.

"This is _awful_," said korah. "This is absolutely awful. This is _disgusting._" His had were shaking.

Jian Li grabbed Korah by his collar and pulled him close, "You better harden up _right now_, Korah! You think this sucks? This is why we're here. Now get motivated, get tactical, and fall in line, or so help I am leaving you here! Do you understand?"

"yessir"

This is what happens to us when our defenses and coping mechanisms fail us. Somewhere on the inside we were still just as human as anyone else, but were tasked to do inhuman things. What else, when confronted with the reality of the world we were living in, could we do but break down into a useless crying heap like Korah? That night, Korah saw the world as it really was, not just some television show that was seen through his scope. He was no longer removed; he had become part of the world in which he lived. That's why we all had our different ways of dealing with things. That's why I vowed to never let what I see or did get to me. To keep it contained and bottled away, at least until the mission and the fighting was over.

The bullet whizzed passed our heads with a *kapwing!*

"In the tree line! In the tree line!"

"Fall back!"

"Make for the Jungle!"

We all ran for the tree line on the opposite end of the village as our pursuers, bullets licking at our heals. We about-faced and made prone to return the fire as soon as we got into the jungle.

"How are we getting out of this one?"

"We'll peel," Jian Li said, "And then fall back two hundred meters before retreating."

The peel is a tactic used by a small unit to make it look like it is much larger than it is, or that reinforcements are showing up, even when their numbers are actually falling back. Each one of us, one at a time, fell back about three to ten meters, and then moved ten to twenty meters to the left or right before reengaging to give the appearance that there were many more of us than there actually were. After each one of use had peeled, in the same order we began falling back one at a time about two hundred meters and waited for the rest of our lance. That should by us some time – they had no idea if we had retreated or if we were simply holding our fire, and it would buy us some time as they mulled over calling our bluff. Jet set some more explosive booby traps on our rally point before we began to fall back. We only made it about a minute before we heard the mine go off. They were right on our tail.

"Hiro!" shouted Jian Li, "You're up!"

Our pursuers we're downwind of us… so was that village.

But I had a job to do. I was a fire bender. I was a soldier. That's what it means to be a soldier; that sometimes some must die so that others may live.

I set the jungle on fire.


	11. Chapter 11

After three weeks of itching and sponge-baths, we were released from the hospital and spent the next two weeks retraining. Our equipment was wiped down, but our clothing was another matter. Most of it had was unsave-ably contaminated and had to be disposed of (I was lucky enough to save my gloves, the leather being too tough for smoke to seep into, and Peng was lucky enough to have forgotten his luck-charm bandanna ). We were given new uniforms, unique to the Daggers, all black jumpsuits with patches on the sleeve depicting a horned demonic skull and the words "_Night time is the right time_." Apparently it was a dark joke in reference to some song that had come out and become popular during our stay in the hospital.

Everyone immediately got to work on modifying their uniforms. I cut the long sleeves off into the shape of a T-shirt. Koko cut the sleeves off of her uniform completely. Peng did the exact opposite, he cut off the torso but left the sleeves and collar connecting them intact, so that he could stay as cool as possibly while wearing his flack-jacket, and at the same time leaving none of his skin exposed to the elements. Hei-Bai neglected the dress code entirely, still opting to wear his body armor and short-shorts along with his boonie-cap and goofy looking aviators. Not even three weeks in hospital bed had put a dent into his hideous tan lines. He did keep the patch, however, which he displayed proudly from the front of his armor.

We were redeployed to a fire-base very close to where the action was. Every day there was the sound of artillery being fired. Soon, everyone had become accustomed to hearing the near constant noise that the gunners gave up on shouting ''outgoing'' before firing the guns. The Jians were really ramping up their counter offensive, in response and in retribution for our near deaths the last time we were on a mission.

There were two other things that were being utilized. The first was a new kind of powered glider invented in the Firenation called a 'jet.' Powered by a duct-ed propeller with hundreds of tiny blades, where fuel was exploded through the blades, forcing them to spin at incredible speeds. Jets consumed a lot of fuel, were incredibly loud, but were very fast, carried huge payloads and were very deadly against both targets on the ground and in the air, with their nose-mounted intakes and swept back wings they looked predatorial like a flying shark. They were an expensive high-maintenance piece of equipment, so the Jians could only afford a small handful of them.

They also carried a new type of bomb. It was shaped like an oil drum with a drag-chute on one end and meter long contact sensor on the other. The bomb had two detonators, a candle being burned at both end. The two explosions would race towards each other, meeting in the middle. The result was a very powerful explosion in the shape of a disk instead of a ball. It cut down anything in its path.

The next piece of tech was the powered auto-gyro. It was similar to a normal auto-gyro, but shaped like a spermatozoa. The propeller had been moved from the front to the tail, and faced sideways. The rotors on the top of the aircraft were now powered by the crafts engine instead of freely spinning. It was an interesting contraption, but it had the advantage of not only flying slowly but being able to hover and move in any direction. The powered auto-gyro was originally made for mountain operations. It could pick up artillery and move it to difficult terrain. Mostly, it was land planes. The powered auot-gyros usually had a hook-like contraption mounted to the bottom. When a runway wasn't available, it could pick up an aircraft, accelerate to the aircraft's minimum speed before stalling, and then release. The same thing was done in reverse to land, catching the plane with the hook and then landing vertically.

The Jians quickly improvised this aircraft into a role that no one had thought of before. Instead of being used to carry equipment, extra armor was added to them to protect from small arms fire and a quad-machine gun was added to the side of the crew compartment's opening. Instead of the a utility vehicle, the Jians were using the powered auto-gyro as a low altitude gunship for VCAS (very close air support). They were literally writing the book on a whole new kind of strategy.

The actual counter insurgency methods didn't change much. First the Wolfbat came in and marked the target with smoke. Then a fighter-bomber jet was scrambled, reaching the target from miles away in usually under two minutes, and dropped one of its special bombs on the smoke (the Jets were too fast to be guided in, and the bombs were too heavy to be carried by the Wolfbats). The K-cars then came in and began their orbits. The G-cars came in and dropped of their troops. The transports came in and dropped the seep-line. This time, however, the powered auto gyros would come in and turn sideways, exposing the enemy to the machine-guns on their right side. They would then move around the battlefield, wherever the stop-lines, sweep-lines, or OP called them to, sometimes flying at an altitude of only about ten meters. The insurgents were being cut down in droves, but they wouldn't stop coming.

I was walking back from the firing range when it happened. I wasn't in pain, so much as confused. I barely had time to react the fist that came crashing into the side of my skull and sent me straight into the ground. The sky and everything I saw was spinning, but I could make out Peng standing above me, rolling up his sleeves.

All I could think to say was, "Why?"

The ground erupted from beneath me, launching me back to my feet. He grabbed me by the collar and pulled me close.

"Oh, you _know_ why. Those handlers? Didn't you see? They were _fire benders_. Those are the _enemy!_ We're at war with _your_ people. We all almost died, Hiro."

"Peng, have you lost your freakin' mind! I'm a citizen of the Earth Kingdom. For Yue's sake, we both fought in the Si Wong desert."

He drew his fist back. I arced electricity between my fingers, but then I saw the rock he was hiding floating behind his back.

"You're a mercenary, Peng," I said. "You don't have values. You don't have grudges. You're just doing your job for the money, just like me. You really want to have to explain to your employer why one of their assets is in the hospital when the time comes for them to cut the checks? Make the rational decision."

He froze for a second, mulling it over. Having to deal with the reality of the situation. Then he let go of me, dropping the rock and stormed off, muttering something under his breath.

I heard the sound of slow, sarcastic clapping behind me. It was… Hei-Bai!

"Bravo, young man."

"Is there something I can do for you, sir?"

"Just answer a question for me."

"What?"

"Why do you let him push you around like that?"

"He wasn't worth the effort''

"_Effort?_ He wouldn't even take any effort. I know all about what you can do. Who you are. It's no secret to me what happened when you –"

"Don't you dare say another word, Hei-Bai. You have your secrets, and I don't like you talking about mine."

"That's fair," He said. "Anyway, get ready for an in-country mission tomorrow morning. I'll just let you be forewarned, it will be red and black."

They gave us all mefloquine pills to prevent malaria. Mefloquine has some unfortunate mental side effects. Irritability. Possibility of hallucination. But mostly intense and highly vivid nightmares and waking dreams. Of course, these are also all the symptoms of combat stress. I had a mefloquine dream that night. They say if you die in a dream you wake up, so That was my first clue I wasn't the center of that dream. He looked like me at first. Wore all my equipment. Carried my shotgun and a katana. I thought it was me at first from the hair. When he turned around, I realized it was my father.

My father didn't much look like me. Growing up, everyone I know remarked how much I looked like my mother, Azusa. Of course, my father was never around enough for them to have a real reference point. There were, however, two things he gave me: His green eyes, and his jet-black hair. And now I was watching him running around with a twelve-gauge shotgun, shooting at monsters.

They came from everywhere, all at once, thousands of them. But they were weak. One by one, he destroyed them. And eventually when my shotgun ran out of ammo, he switched to his sword. And now the monsters we're getting much closer, close enough to touch him, slash him with their claws or bite him. That didn't stop him; he cut them down like chaff. But eventually he makes a mistake. Eventually he gets tired, and then one little tiny wound after another. Eventually the monsters will win.


	12. Chapter 12

As a soldier, you have to be prepared to improvise. Being unpredictable is one of the best ways to defeat the enemy. Sometimes that requires you to do things you haven't trained for – on account of the fact that they simply shouldn't be done in the first place. Like jumping out of an auto-gyro traveling over one hundred kilometers per hour without a parachute.

"This is nuts," said Koko. "This is nuts for spooks, and spec-ops. This is even nuts for an _airbender"_

"I know it's crazy," Hei-Bai said. "That's why it will work."

Peng said, "It's not just crazy, it's stupid"

"No it's not." Buno. "I know those hills like the back of my hand. The vegetation's perfect. The angle of the slope is perfect. Nice and cushy but not too slippery. Math check's out, too. You can argue with Hei-Bai all you want, but the math is math. Don't take my opinion on it either. This is something people a lot smarter than me figured out, and I trust them a lot more than I trust me"

For a split second his eyes darted over to Hei-Bai. Could that really be possible? Could it be that Hei-Bai himself really planned this entire operation?

"Look, team – I know I'm asking a lot from you, but you know full-well what we're up against. These guys are seeing everything we do. The only thing we have left is the fact that they're so secure about their ability to see ten steps ahead of us, that they won't see the play that's directly in front of them. I don't know about you, but after that stunt they pulled with the poison ivy, I'm ready for some payback. Are you with me?"

"You know I am, boss," Buno said.

"Aw… shucks. I'm in," Said Chang.

"I know you want payback, Peng," said Hei-Bai. "You're always pissed, but you're definitely pissed at these guys more. what d'ya say?"

"Convince me," he said.

"I'll tell you guys what… for whoever's alive when we get back from this operation, the next five rounds of sake are on me."

Peng smiled, "Yeah, I guess I'm in"

Koko spoke for both of us, "Then we're in two."

"Alright then," Hei-Bai spoke. "Everybody better be here in twelve hundred. Dismissed."

Of course Buno and Hei-Bai both walked away, while the rest stayed behind.

"How low does he think our standards are?" I said. "Like we're gonna be OK with this whole operation after a few rounds of sake."

"Did you catch that whole thing about whoever makes it out of the operation alive?" Koko said.

"I'll you guys what," Peng said mocking Hei-Bai's voice. "If this operation goes bad I'll make sure Hei-Bai's the first casualty myself."

It was all supposed to go a little something like this. We'd hit the handlers directly, and where it hurt. We'd attack them from deep in the hills. The only way to do that was to make sure that they'd have no idea that we we're there. We would have to become ghosts. We wouldn't be able to walk in. They'd see us coming for miles. We couldn't be (conventionally) inserted by air: if they had any sense at all, they'd have scouts all over the hilltops, tracking any incoming aircraft and watching where they'd set down. We would have to compromise.

The auto-gyro would be traveling at full airspeed when we jumped out. A mountain peak would be passed over, cleared by the auto-gyro by only a distance of maybe five meters. It was calculated that the slope of the mountain almost exactly matched the parabolic trajectory we would follow as we jumped from aircraft at 113 kph. Time was everything. If we jumped too soon, the bird was travelling too slow, or it came in too low, we'd splatter against the top of the hill. On the other hand, if we jumped too late, we we're too fast, or too high, we would over shoot the slope and end up in free fall, splattering on the rocks hundreds of feet below. There was no attempt at a second chance. If conditions weren't right the first time, we wouldn't be able to circle around a second time without raising their suspicion. No matter what, we had to jump.

After we jumped, the auto-gyro would set do a slow pass over another flat-topped hill, to give the appearance that we we're being inserted somewhere else – a technique known in the world of special ops as a 'dummy drop.' The dummy drop served two purposes. First, it kept them from getting suspicious about why the aircraft was doing a flyby. Secondly, it lead them in wrong direction, sending them away from our actual position and hopefully drawing them out into the open where we could see them. A moving enemy is always easier to track than a dug-in one.

So here we all were, huddled together in the back of a K-car, linked at the elbows, about to jump out a moving aircraft without a parachute.

"Get ready!" our pilot shouted to us. "Coming up on the drop zone in ten seconds!"

He held out his hand, counting down the time with his fingers. Three… two… one…

He clenched his fist.

Oh, well. Time to jump and hope for the best.


End file.
